I think a big part of the reason it's hard for liberals or progressives to get their message out is that there is normally going to be a conservative bias in all of the major organs of social control. I feel like this is unavoidable because if the Agents of counter-revolution aren't strong then the society is going to collapse eventually. The example that springs to my mind right away was Obama telling all the bank executives that it was his job to protect them from the mobs carrying pitchforks. Now we know that that's political malpractice, but that's always going to be the bias of people in Authority whether it be in government business or the media.

Isn't this a necessary consequence of the whole thing where journalists, politicians, and opinion leaders have just decided to stop talking about guns? I mean the typical opinion-class response when there's a mass shooting now seems to be either denouncing the police for not being tactically aggressive enough or else arguing back and forth about whether it means something about mental health or whether that's offensive to the mentally ill, speculating about whether it's down to content moderation or something...but not as much as mentioning the g word.

https://twitter.com/yorksranter/status/1526330374418321409

The problem here is that people don't care about policy, they care about vibes. And increased danger means people want to run to daddy, and so it's just always going to help republicans. See also 9/11 helping Bush, even though he's the one who let it happen. The way to make progress is to talk about it ways that give people daddy vibes, but it's still just going to be hard because violence-related issues always makes most voters move right.

4 is exactly right.

I think 4 is right.

But I didn't see 5 before posting.

I accept your apology.

I was only explaining.

There, there.

4: Isn't it odd when suddenly a word takes over and it doesn't seem possible to express any thought without using it? When did the vibe "vibe" start? Of course, people have been using it for decades, but sometime in the last few months, it seems like "vibe" is everywhere.

Or am I just imagining this?

It's just in the air.

Also I just remembered that Congress did pass bipartisan gun legislation this year. I had to google it to make sure that I didn't just imagine it. https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/25/politics/biden-signs-gun-bill/index.ht

Secret Congress!

13: Sorry, messed up the link!

Biden signs bipartisan gun safety bill into law: 'God willing, it's going to save a lot of lives'

https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/25/politics/biden-signs-gun-bill/index.html

11: Since I literally listened to two episodes of Vibe Check since yesterday, where they heavily use that word, I am in complete agreement but the phenomenon only started yesterday, not months ago.

16: Yes, I'm not sure if it's that Sam Sanders started it by naming his show that, or if he has the gift of anticipating the coming vibe before the rest of us.

I thought there was an article this summer about "the coming vibe shift" or something that people started playing off of and eventually transformed into saying "just vibes" as a casual phrase.

I think it's probably short for "vibration."

I thought there was an article this summer about "the coming vibe shift"

I remember that-- not the article, but that people were talking about a "vibe shift". Does anybody have any idea what that was about?

A vibe shift is coming. But not everyone survives a vibe shift, writes @AllisonPDavis
https://twitter.com/nymag/status/1493959192134266886

Curiouser and curiouser - that was all the way back in February 2022 -- at least 3 vibes ago.

The notion that the Republican party is the daddy party and the Democratic party is the mommy party is a right-wing frame job. Just like the idea that the Republican Party is fiscally responsible and the Democrats are tax and spend.

A real dad doesn't give the car keys to his drunk 12-year-old. Just like a real daddy party wouldn't let irresponsible idiots by assault rifles.

22.1: I think we should accept this framing. "Dad's a drunk that never did anything for us!"

I feel like you don't understand Red America if you think "a real daddy party wouldn't let irresponsible idiots by assault rifles."

I think the single most important frame in which to understand the Trump era of politics is that the right has completely abandoned any pretext of being the party of "traditionally masculine virtues" and have double down on being the party of "traditionally masculine vices." They're the abusive dad party (both in the sense that that's their vibe, and in the sense that it describes a lot of their voters).

As the House GOP's iconic tweet puts it: "Kanye. Elon. Trump."

https://twitter.com/JudiciaryGOP/status/1578174670854975491

Though really Herschel Walker is maybe even more of a poster child for the abusive dad thing than Trump.

I've been leery of Kanye since his beef with Taylor.

Yeah, that Taylor's a Democrat and Kanye is a Republican really captures a lot of what happened in politics in the last 6 years.

The Kanye thing is so dumb, the reason Beyonce didn't win that particular award is that they were saving the bigger award for her (they almost never give the lesser awards to the winner of the big award). Also Kanye was 32 and Taylor 19, grown men bullying teenagers really should be a big red flag (and is also the main point of Trump-era conservatism).

I think the OP discussion of guns recapitulates a very common misunderstanding about political messaging. Persuasion really isn't the issue. Stricter gun laws are popular for obvious reasons. The case doesn't need to be made to the public.

But the gun nuts vote that issue, not the normal people.

Well-meaning liberals are always looking for that One Weird Trick that will convincingly show that (for example) Trump is an asshole. But everybody knows this already. No new information is necessary.

Smart politicians know that they need to take the debate to where the people are. Joe Biden, through his words and example, isn't trying to persuade people that Trump is an asshole. He's trying to persuade people that being an asshole is bad.

Someone's schadenfreude roundup had an image or clip of a Fox commentator totally stunned that a majority of people in some poll who think crime is a serious issue voted Fetterman(?).* It made me wonder if persistent Republican ineffectiveness on nearly any issue except promoting open bigotry is starting to challenge the assumption that crime is a Republican-favoring issue.

* I'm pretty sure it was Fetterman but could have been another Democrat.

Which is crazy, of course people think Fetterman is better on crime than Dr. Oz. Fetterman's huge!

I think it's more that fewer Democrats are willing to give a shit about anything except "Not fucked in the head."

I just came across this. Which suggests 30 may be closer to right than 32.

I try to make the case for stricter gun laws here in New Hampshire but its hard to make the case because, while we have a ton of guns, we are ranked #46 as a state in terms of our rate of gun violence.
Still way above, say, Europe, but because we grade on a scale its hard to convince people that its a problem.

Between you and me, if America's murder rate was the same as New Hampshire's, I wouldn't give a shit about gun control either.

But don't tell everyone else.

34 is the problem with states. NH gun laws aren't a big problem for NH, but easy access to guns in NH drives crimes in Boston. This is why part of the Chicago area being in Indiana is such a disaster.

The part of Michigan near Chicago is kind of not great either.

Aesthetically. I don't know about crime.

I'm not looking to Kink shame anyone, but if you're calling somebody a daddy who you're not related to and who has no traditional masculine virtues and only traditional masculine vices, then I feel like you could be making better choices.

40: Yeah, they should call that person "oppa"

It doesn't help that people are completely back-to-front about these things, as when the Democratic candidate for governor of Oklahoma got literally laughed at when she said--perfectly correctly--that the murder rate in Oklahoma is much worse than that in New York. This is one where facts just don't penetrate.

Most gun crime falls on poor, minority neighborhoods. Even there, it is frequently affects people already involve in crime.

For the average voter, crime means "I see black/poor/mentally ill/drug-using people". Some of this is legitimate (open drug use) and some not, but that is the problem (politically).

The solution is making housing affordable, actually cracking down on panhandling and public drug use, and better mental health treatment.

Actually solving crime (less guns, making policing more like TV copaganda and less like gangs, better post-incarceration community integration) is good but pretty orthogonal.

38: I bet the guns in that part of Michigan also came from Indiana!

In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate, yet rotated 90 degrees from each other, groups.

DUN DUN!

And of course there's crime, a thing that many people are legitimately concerned about which affects them, and crime, which is when you come into the city or turn on the TV news and see, you know... crime-type people. I'm looking for the tweet but I saw someone say today that they knew of two separate incidents in which the New York Post offered crime victims a front page story if they would say that being a crime victim had made them decide to vote for Lee Zeldin. (Here it is, from a Daily News columnist: https://twitter.com/harrysiegel/status/1590704053666783232)

I will never stop being amused by "In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups. The police who investigate crime, and the Crown Prosecutors who prosecute the offenders."

48: and then they flash "Law" with the coppers' actors, and "Order" for the CPS. Completely backwards!

In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the Orpo and the SiPo.